Interview with Steve Ray: Assistant Director of Special Events Catering
Our research group had an informal hour-long interview with Steve Ray, Assistant Director of Special Events Catering to learn more about the organization. The setup of the interview was very casual and started with our team describing the improvement process and the main criteria so that Ray would have a general understanding of the material that we were looking to learn about Special Events. The main thing that we learned is that Aramark is the exclusive dining company on JMU’s campus and each dining area operates under different business units. Special Events is a branch off of Aramark JMU Dining Services.
Each year, over 72,332 changes are communicated from clients and vendors to the sales management. This is a very overwhelming process that causes last minute confusion between the different departments within Special Events Catering. They have only one process that allows clients to make changes.
The main challenges that this department faces is they are the exclusive catering company allowed on campus and they have to say yes to every type of event and any organization they come in contact with. They have a wide range of services because their scope of their business encompasses everything that involves food, so that includes anything from tailgates, formal business dinners, and paper deliveries. Special Event catering also serves as a system within JMU and meets with all of the major departments on campus and communicates with Harrisonburg, the police, and anyone off-campus that is trying to come on campus. Another challenge is that all of the changes are time dependent because the event start times and dates cannot be altered, which puts a lot of strain on the sales managers, the kitchen, and the wait staff.
Ray continued to describe that their main weaknesses are that: they are exclusive to JMU students and faculty, they are open and available to host an event 365 days a year 24/7 with too many broad choices and no standard intent. He then countered the weaknesses with his personal ideas of SPEV’s strengths, which are that they are able to focus on the purpose of the event and cater to each customer’s unique needs. They love to support the mission of all of their visitors, including outside guests, which gives them a competitive advantage. They obtain vision through subjective evaluation.
An opportunity that Ray sees is to create different standards, which would label each event in order to help management be able to standardize the software systems. For example, they could create platinum, silver, and gold standard to label each event to redefine the online drop down menu. A potential threat that he mentioned was that parking and gates can cause issues with on-campus events and guests.
Some areas for improvement that were discussed is that there could be fewer choices or limited scope for items clients could order, which is a contradiction with SPEV’s main mission of customer service. There is room for improvement for communication between the departments of dining as well as the systems of SPEV. He also thinks that if there were a standardization of the offerings and levels of the service, for example with the Catertrax tool, which is the communications software and a web-based system, there would be less confusion. The main issue Catertrax is that they cannot capture the previous history and edits unless there is a paper copy to back up the changes that the customers edited.
Each year, over 72,332 changes are communicated from clients and vendors to the sales management. This is a very overwhelming process that causes last minute confusion between the different departments within Special Events Catering. They have only one process that allows clients to make changes.
The main challenges that this department faces is they are the exclusive catering company allowed on campus and they have to say yes to every type of event and any organization they come in contact with. They have a wide range of services because their scope of their business encompasses everything that involves food, so that includes anything from tailgates, formal business dinners, and paper deliveries. Special Event catering also serves as a system within JMU and meets with all of the major departments on campus and communicates with Harrisonburg, the police, and anyone off-campus that is trying to come on campus. Another challenge is that all of the changes are time dependent because the event start times and dates cannot be altered, which puts a lot of strain on the sales managers, the kitchen, and the wait staff.
Ray continued to describe that their main weaknesses are that: they are exclusive to JMU students and faculty, they are open and available to host an event 365 days a year 24/7 with too many broad choices and no standard intent. He then countered the weaknesses with his personal ideas of SPEV’s strengths, which are that they are able to focus on the purpose of the event and cater to each customer’s unique needs. They love to support the mission of all of their visitors, including outside guests, which gives them a competitive advantage. They obtain vision through subjective evaluation.
An opportunity that Ray sees is to create different standards, which would label each event in order to help management be able to standardize the software systems. For example, they could create platinum, silver, and gold standard to label each event to redefine the online drop down menu. A potential threat that he mentioned was that parking and gates can cause issues with on-campus events and guests.
Some areas for improvement that were discussed is that there could be fewer choices or limited scope for items clients could order, which is a contradiction with SPEV’s main mission of customer service. There is room for improvement for communication between the departments of dining as well as the systems of SPEV. He also thinks that if there were a standardization of the offerings and levels of the service, for example with the Catertrax tool, which is the communications software and a web-based system, there would be less confusion. The main issue Catertrax is that they cannot capture the previous history and edits unless there is a paper copy to back up the changes that the customers edited.